Much of the recent advances in electronic commerce enable a first trading partner to order an item from a second trading partner and have high expectations that the correct item will be delivered. The Universal Product Code, UPC and its successor, the Global Trade Item Number, GTIN, with extensions disclosed in the referenced patent applications are used to identify an item and its configuration so the second trading partner will have an accurate description of the item ordered by the first trading partner. However, the physical item does not have a systematic identifier that can be used to track it through its life. The UPC or GTIN are not sufficient since there may be other items with the same description that have the same item description identifier. The publishing industry uses the International Standard Book Number, ISBN, to identify a book. A book is registered with the ISBN organization and assigned an ISBN. The ISBN of a book is encoded in a bar code that is printed on the book cover. The ISBN on a book can be used to query an ISBN catalog and the catalog will respond with the author and title of the book. The ISBN can be used to order the book, used with electronic point of sale equipment, etc. as the UPC is used in the grocery and other industries. However, the ISBN cannot be used to identify a specific physical book since all books with the same characteristics (title, author, etc.) have the same ISBN. A library that loans books cannot use the ISBN to track each book that is loaned out. (Unless it is a very small library and it has only one copy of a book.) The library must use another identifier for each physical book. This is usually an additional bar code that is unique for a book in a library and the system used to track the physical book. There is additional effort required to affix the bar code label and associate the bar code with the characteristics of the book in the library tracking system. Since there are no standards for these added bar codes, the bar codes used in a first library system will not have any meaning in a second library system. A book with a library bar code has no identification in any other system.
RosettaNet is an electronics industry consortium focused on defining and implementing standards for use of the Internet in commerce between trading partners. As part of the standards, the description for items, the catalog structure, and catalog queries have been defined and implementation started. In partnership with RosettaNet, the Uniform Code Council, UCC, is working to establish standards for the item description identifier, a part number, for the transactions between trading partners. The UCC is the standards body that defines and controls the standard for the UPC and GTIN and other associated identifiers. In this specification, a catalog is an organization of information that describes attributes of items in the catalog. One of the attributes is an item description identifier or part number. The catalog supports two classes of queries: 1) the first query class uses the description of an item as an argument and the catalog responds with the item description identifier, part number, if there is an item that fits the description and 2) the second query class uses the item description identifier, part number, as the argument and the catalog responds with the description of the item. RosettaNet is establishing standards for the electronics industry for item descriptions; web based, system accessible catalogs; and catalog queries. RosettaNet and the UCC are working to establish standards for the item description identifier, the part number.
The UPC is more complex than the ISBN in that the catalog with item descriptions is not a single catalog as with the ISBN but multiple catalogs where a company provides a catalog of the items it sells. The UCC assigns a range of UPC codes to a company by assigning some of the digits to identify the company and other digits are assigned by the company to identify the description of the item. For example, the UPC, Illustrated in FIG. 1A, is a 12-digit code that can be represented in a bar code. Six digits, called the Company Prefix, are assigned by the UCC and are associated with a company. Five digits, called the Item Reference Number, are assignable by the company to identify product descriptions. One digit is used as a Check Digit and is derived from the values of the other digits using an algorithm so that simple bar code reading errors can be detected. To determine the description of a box of soap from the UPC bar code on the box is a two-step process. The first step is to determine the company from which the UPC came. The UCC has a catalog of the six digit Company Prefix assignments. The UCC catalog is used to determine the company from which the UPC came. The second step is to determine the description of the box of soap from the company catalog. The UPC is used to query the catalog of the company that assigned the five-digit UPC range. The catalog query returns the item description. For the GTIN illustrated in FIG. 1B, the UCC uses a 12-digit field for the Company Prefix and Item Reference Number. The division of UCC assigned Company Prefix digits and the companies assigned Item Reference Number digits are not fixed. This permits better use of the combined 12-digit field since all companies do not need a five-digit Item Reference Number as in the UPC, which covers 100,000 different items, to assign to their products. The UCC has different divisions of the digits so that for example, a company with few items is assigned a GTIN with three-digit Item Reference Number field, which covers 1000 different items. The UCC then has nine Company Prefix digits to assign and can assign 1,000,000,000 companies a three-digit Item Reference Number GTIN code. As a consequence, the GTIN cannot be divided to determine the Company Prefix and the complete GTIN containing the Company Prefix and the Item Reference Number must be used to determine the company assigned the GTIN.
A manufacturer purchases components to assemble products. The components are packaged in a carrier that can hold a number of individual, identical components. The carrier is used to feed the components into the assembly equipment. When new, the carrier holds a specific number of components. As products are assembled, the components in the component carrier are consumed. The set of products to be assembled may complete before the carrier is empty. The carrier is returned to a storage location until needed to assemble the product needing the component. The UPC or GTIN associated with the component carrier cannot be used to identify the physical carrier since there may be other carriers with the same component and hence the same bar code. As with the library books, a second bar code may be affixed to track the physical carrier. As with the library and the ISBN, the bar code must be affixed and the corresponding information entered and cross-referenced with the bar code.
A configured product, for example, a PC can have specific configuration of functions when built and sold but changed by the owner when adding functions and removing other functions. When the PC is brought in for warranty repairs, the current configuration should be compared with the original configuration. To identify the specific physical PC, an additional bar code label is usually affixed to the unit. Like the bar code on the library book or the bar code on the component carrier, the bar code is specific to the organization that applied the bar code and the system that is used to track the bar code.
However, if the book is misplaced and later found in another library, the bar code is not of use to identify the original library. Other labels or a name stamped on the book must be used to identify the original library. If the PC is serviced by a third party service provider, the third party requires access to the PC manufacturer system and have compatible bar code equipment to obtain the configuration information. If the third party service provider provided repair service to a number of manufacturers, the service provider may require a number of bar code systems to access the different configuration systems.
The Uniform Code Council, UCC, is the organization responsible for the definition and application of the bar code standards used for grocery and other industries that use the UPC and GTIN. The UPC was highly successful in transforming the grocery industry with the application of the bar code to identify items so that the check out counter bar code reader can read the bar code, access the pricing database for the item price and the inventory database to decrease the store inventory by the items sold. The bar code was used to identify the description of the item but not the item itself. The UCC has recently defined the Serial Shipping Container Code, SSCC, which can be used as a “license plate” to identify a physical shipping container. The SSCC is an 18-digit code containing the Company Prefix of the company creating the SSCC. The container is filled with items and the information is stored in a database. A SSCC is created and used as the key to the information in the database. The SSCC is also encoded as an 18 character bar code and applied to the shipping container. The SSCC can be read and used to access the database to obtain the information about the contents of the shipping container. The SSCC is self-identifying in that six digit positions, the Company Prefix, are assigned by the UCC, like the UPC and GTIN, to encode the owner of the SSCC. The owner of the SSCC assigns eleven digit positions and one digit is a check digit. Like the license plate on an automobile, each is unique and can be used to access information associated with the specific automobile. The license plate for an automobile is self-identifying. The number on the license plate does not identify the state that issued the license plate but the state name, color and picture on the license plate identifies the issuing state. Note that each state uses a sequence of letters and digits. Each combination is unique within a state's license plates. However, the number and letters from the license plate of one state may be used by a second state for a different automobile. The number from the first state identifies a specific automobile in the first state database. If used in another state, the number may not identify a physical automobile or certainly a different automobile. The SSCC is self-identifying and identifies a specific physical item. But the SSCC does not identify the item as the UPC or GTIN does. The SSCC is a second bar code and the item description identifier and the physical item identifier must be associated as with the second bar code on the book, or carrier, or PC.
Physical identification systems are used to support processes such as asset tracking, inventory tracking, configuration tracking, location tracking, item condition, etc. The physical identification systems require information describing the physical item and the unique identifier affixed to the item. The information associated with the item is available but not tied to a unique identifier nor accessible in a systematic process. What is desired is a single identifier, usually a bar code, affixed by the manufacturer, the selling trading partner, that can be used to identify the item and access the information associated with the item created and provided by the selling partner and a systematic process for the buying partner to access the information so that it can be used to initialize the item in the buyer's physical identification systems.